1950s


The 1950s was a decade that began on January 1, 1950, and ended on December 31, 1959.
Throughout the decade, the world continued its recovery from World War II, aided by the post-World War II economic expansion. The period also saw great population growth with increased birth rates and the emergence of the baby boomer generation.
Despite this recovery, the Cold War developed from its modest beginnings in the late 1940s to a heated competition between the Soviet Union and the United States by the early 1960s. The ideological clash between communism and capitalism dominated the decade, especially in the Northern Hemisphere.
In the United States, a wave of anti-communist sentiment known as the Second Red Scare or McCarthyism resulted in Congressional hearings by both houses in Congress. In the Soviet Union, the death of Joseph Stalin would lead to a political campaign and reforms known as "de-Stalinization" initiated by Nikita Khrushchev, eventually leading to the deterioration between the relationship of the Soviet Union and China in the 1950s.
The beginning of the Cold War led to the beginning of the Space Race with the launch of Sputnik 1 in 1957; the United States would create NASA in response in 1958. Along with increased testing of nuclear weapons called the arms race, the tense geopolitical situation created a politically conservative climate.
The beginning of decolonization in Africa and Asia also took place in this decade and accelerated in the following one, leading to several wars and conflicts throughout the decade.
Other wars that occurred throughout the 1950s include the First Indochina War, Malayan Emergency, Korean War, the Algerian War, the First Sudanese Civil War, the Vietnam War, the Cuban Revolution, and the Suez Crisis. Coups include the Egyptian Revolution, the Iranian coup d'état, the Guatemalan coup d'état, the 14 July Revolution, and the Pakistani coup d'état.
Television became a common innovation in American homes during the 1950s culminating in the Golden Age of TV. This led many to purchase more products and upgrade whatever they currently had resulting in mass consumerism. While outside of America, it would take a few decades for TV to become commonplace in other countries.
The 1950s saw a turning point for polio with the successful discovery of the polio vaccine. Following the widespread use of poliovirus vaccine in the mid-1950s, the incidence of poliomyelitis declined rapidly in many industrialized countries while it would gradually decline for the next few decades in developing countries reducing the number of death rates from this disease.
During the 1950s, the world population increased from 2.5 to 3.0 billion, with approximately 1 billion births and 500 million deaths.

Politics and wars

Wars

  • Cold War conflicts involving the influence of the rival superpowers of the Soviet Union and the United States.
  • * Korean War – The war, which lasted from June 25, 1950, until the signing of the Korean Armistice Agreement on July 27, 1953, started as a civil war between North Korea and the Republic of Korea. When it began, North and South Korea existed as provisional governments competing for control over the Korean peninsula, due to the division of Korea by outside powers. While originally a civil war, it quickly escalated into a war between the Western powers under the United Nations Command led by the United States and its allies and the communist powers of the People's Republic of China and the Soviet Union. On September 15, General Douglas MacArthur conducted Operation Chromite, an amphibious landing at the city of Inchon. The North Korean army collapsed, and within a few days, MacArthur's army retook Seoul. He then pushed north, capturing Pyongyang in October. Chinese intervention the following month drove UN forces south again. MacArthur then planned for a full-scale invasion of China, but this was against the wishes of President Truman and others who wanted a limited war. He was dismissed and replaced by General Matthew Ridgway. The war then became a bloody stalemate for the next two and a half years while peace negotiations dragged on. The war left 33,742 American soldiers dead, 92,134 wounded, and 80,000 missing in action or prisoner of war. Estimates place Korean and Chinese casualties at 1,000,000–1,400,000 dead or wounded, and 140,000 MIA or POW.
  • * First Indochina War.
  • * The Vietnam War began in 1955. Diệm instituted a policy of death penalty against any communist activity in 1956. The Viet Minh began an assassination campaign in early 1957. An article by French scholar Bernard Fall published in July 1958 concluded that a new war had begun. The first official large unit military action was on September 26, 1959, when the Viet Cong ambushed two ARVN companies.
  • Arab–Israeli conflict
  • Suez Crisis – The Suez Crisis was a war fought on Egyptian territory in 1956. Following the nationalisation of the Suez Canal in 1956 by Gamal Abdel Nasser, the United Kingdom, France and Israel subsequently invaded. The operation was a military success, but after the United States and Soviet Union united in opposition to the invasion, the invaders were forced to withdraw. This was seen as a major humiliation, especially for the two Western European countries, and symbolizes the beginning of the end of colonialism and the weakening of European global importance, specifically the collapse of the British Empire.
  • Algerian War – An important decolonization war, it was a complex conflict characterized by guerrilla warfare, maquis fighting, terrorism against civilians, use of torture on both sides and counter-terrorism operations by the French Army. The war eventually led to the independence of Algeria from France.

    Internal conflicts

  • Malayan Emergency – a guerrilla war in British Malaya that led to the independence of the Federation of Malaya.
  • Cuban Revolution – The 1959 overthrow of Fulgencio Batista by Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, and other forces resulted in the creation of the first communist government in the Western hemisphere.
  • The Mau Mau began retaliating against the British in Kenya. This led to concentration camps in Kenya, a British military victory, and the election of moderate nationalist Jomo Kenyatta as leader of Kenya.
  • First Sudanese Civil War
  • The Wind of Destruction began in Rwanda in 1959 following the assault of Hutu politician Dominique Mbonyumutwa by Tutsi forces. This was the beginning of decades of ethnic violence in the country, which culminated in the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
  • Hungarian Revolution of 1956 – A massive, spontaneous popular uprising in the Soviet satellite state of Hungary against that country's Soviet-backed Marxist-Leninist regime, inspired by political changes in Poland and the Soviet Union. The uprising, fought primarily by students and workers, managed to fight the invading Soviet Army to a standstill, and a new, pro-reform government took power. While the top Soviet leaders even considered withdrawing from Hungary entirely, they soon crushed the Revolution with a massive second invasion, killing thousands of Hungarians and sending hundreds of thousands more into exile. This was the largest act of internal dissent in the history of the Soviet Bloc, and its violent suppression served to further discredit the Soviet Union even among its erstwhile supporters.
  • 1951 Nepalese revolution – The overthrow of the autocratic Rana regime in Nepal and the establishment of democracy in Nepal.

    Coups

Prominent coups d'état of the decade included: